the Dancing DJ

[deepvisual]

I VJ'd for the first time in a few years last night.

One thing that I noticed during the 8 hours in a room that was only 20% full (recession or bad promotion?? who knows??) was that the DJs all dance now.
When I started out they just played records ( I'll say it before steveG does - 78s) and looked cool. Now they are up on stage and dance like crazy, stopping only to get the next record.

Given the many VJ discussions on visuals/audience/Dj interaction, it got me to thinking... how difficult it is to dance when you are doing the visuals.
Its something I've come up against when onstage with a band. The rest of them are going nuts. I tend to stand in the corner and try to look busy, but can't seem to do that and bop along at the same time...



YouTube - David Bowie: DJ

[kyogen]

Yeah i'll usually be boppin along, unless i'm really concentrating on finding the right clip or effect on time.
i'll even have a propper dance for a minute or 2 for each DJ

[SteveG]

Leicester Sat March 28th Mr Deepvisual.....a VJ who DJ's and dances :D....78's you cheeky tinker....lol even I'm not that old. And you stick to your big superstar gigs...get out of the clubs and stop stealing my work :D Hope you enjoyed being back at the sharp end. 20% full....getting worse:( If you want to see DJ going bonkers do some of the Hard Dance nights....crowd surfing and stack climbing are not out of the ordinary.......nutters :D

[vdmoKstaTi]

If the music is going of and Im really digging it, I'll be dancing hard at it, cant stop.- ya know!!!
Playing visuals in awesome rocking music environment is just mad, wet, brain melting fun. I'll have that anyday!

I wonder if I would outdance Morph :) ?

[deepvisual]

well, my point was that a crowd of dancers could probably relate better to someone who was dancing, or even leading the dance...

the only problem is how can you get them to understand you are doing the video...

I guess we need to study some videos of Morph in action...

[PCProject]

what on Get Hart?

He only climbed out of matchboxes and not much else as I recall

mind you it was in the days of wind-up gramaphones as opposed to wind up 'visual artistes'

[mowgli]

the only problem is how can you get them to understand you are doing the video...



strap an LCD screen to your head it might still not be obvious what you're doing but you'll get some attention. Jokes aside I am working on a wearable device made of small preview screens, you might want to borrow it sometime but I don't know if it'll fit you :D

[deepvisual]

strap an LCD screen to your head it might still not be obvious what you're doing but you'll get some attention. Jokes aside I am working on a wearable device made of small preview screens, you might want to borrow it sometime but I don't know if it'll fit you :D

Genius.

I have a nice 7" LCD mon I could strap to my chest.
all I need now is a chest.

that said, a preview monitor facing the audience might just bridge the gap..

[mowgli]

I need now is a chest.


http://www.yourplasticsurgeryguide.com/breast-implants/

while you're at it you could get breast implants with built in screens.

[theLABvisuals]

I have a sneaky feeling there may be some footage from mr skinz of my giving it some at the Edirol challenge last year ... you just know that that will come back to haunt me !

[SteveG]

I have a sneaky feeling there may be some footage from mr skinz of my giving it some at the Edirol challenge last year ... you just know that that will come back to haunt me !

... :devil:

[pomoproject]

I control my visuals with a Novation midi keyboard because I play piano, and it seems more natural... and I can't help dancing. I'm also a big fan of dressing up and using weird lighting. Last night my partner and I VJ'd an Icelandic Festival dressed as vikings. :)

I'd love to team up with a few other VJs who also play music and overwhelm people's senses completely.

[polyphant]

We have been partial to using the Korg nano controllers like guitars, you can hold them in a guitar hero style and really trash the hell out of them!
Getting into the music generally results in better visuals, I find it impossible if I sit down!

[p_aul]

ive been a dj for a long time now, and i always dance. it helps get the crowd going when they see the dj up there rockin out. the dancing vj tho...now thats another story.

[KidKDN]

that said, a preview monitor facing the audience might just bridge the gap..

i have worked in clubs where they have stuff like that .. it does help alot.
the last club that had one it was a 19 dell Monitor attached to a pro desk swivel arm. The fact it popped out right in front of the DJ booth made it more watched than my projector above the bar.

SO yea it does help!


Also cam pointedd at your set up. "At really cool angle " as most promoters will suggest. does help too.

[TommyKc]

i'm always bopping around whatever space i get at nights, my sets are just a mashup of little bits of film i've shot and messed with in AE, simple animations of night's logos in flash, remixed movie clips and animated GIFs (oh, and i'll admit i do still use some of the demo stuff i got with arkaos - it really cool!) Use a few bits i've found on archive sites too (Bigup Sleepytom!! used the monitors loop on my first gig and have since made something similar with TVs ficking between whitenoise channels and between TV models at differnt rates, i'll archive it and post a link at some point)

anyway, point is i just trigger it all on the NuVJ, which thankfully still hasn't broken after nearly a year of abuse which i'm really quite surprised but pleased about. I know its much maligned in these circles but what can i say? it makes live vjing a lot of fun! Its quite a light console so i tend to hold it up while fading or scratching so the crowd can see what i'm doing. Only time i really need to get my head down is when tweaking chroma and luma keys. generally ignore the live effects and have my sets pretty well sequenced out now so quite like going out for the odd dance - especially if i've remembered to charge the Handycam and put it on a long cable!

i love crowd interaction, its the fun part - whether its getting them on camera live, sending them messages with live text gennies or even setting up installations they can move through and touch :)

been looking at a battery powered Pico for going out into crowds to project little visual shows on clubbers... would have to be all premixed sequenced and stored on a mem stick but i think they'd love it. Got the idea when i happened to catch that bit in the first series of Futurama where we find out that in the future no one likes art unless its tattooed on fat guys!

ps for really crazy dancing djs do breakcore gigs ;) don't think Lab had ever been clambered around in quite the way Scotch Egg managed to back in September ;)

[sleepytom]

Ahh yes the wrongmusic boys are good for on stage dancing / stupidness... I really enjoyed seeing shitmat at leeds a couple of years ago, he started out wearing a suit, ended up wearing just his pants and broke every table on stage by dancing / leaping / belly flopping onto them! The stage manager was a little bit confused and kept saying things like "WTF is this music?" "are these people on drugs" - i think he was most confused by the fact that there were hundreds of people in the audience who had all come specifically to see shitmat and who all left the tent as soon as he came off stage!

[VJ BLOCTV]

Ahh yes the wrongmusic boys are good for on stage dancing / stupidness... I really enjoyed seeing shitmat at leeds a couple of years ago, he started out wearing a suit, ended up wearing just his pants and broke every table on stage by dancing / leaping / belly flopping onto them! The stage manager was a little bit confused and kept saying things like "WTF is this music?" "are these people on drugs" - i think he was most confused by the fact that there were hundreds of people in the audience who had all come specifically to see shitmat and who all left the tent as soon as he came off stage!

I used to live with him. He came down the stairs one evening wearing nothing but my water proof jacket, carrying a hammer and walked out the front door! Think a mushroom or 2 may have been involved....

[TommyKc]

was that on Coombe rd in brighton by any chance??

[visualove]

DJ's are by and large lazy shits who get all the credit, free pharms and free sx. Most of the work is finding and remembering tracks, just like VJ's, but the performance work is mainly with 3-6 minute tracks. VJ's are dealing sometimes with a hundred tracks a minute! The audience likes the dancing, so as a VJ if you can work it, do it.

[VJ BLOCTV]

was that on Coombe rd in brighton by any chance??

No Beaconsfields Road summer 00 or 01, can't remember which :rolleyes:

[BRUFFINVENI]

omg I didnt even know this was on or coming on I came over here to see what people were saying about the Haleigh case and saw the new posts. lol Cool beans. Hi everyone